Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.

Sci (2015) 4(5): 34-38

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 4 Number 5 (2015) pp. 34-38

http://www.ijcmas.com

Original Research Article

A Comparative Study of typhidot and widal test for Rapid
Diagnosis of Typhoid Fever

Kiran Yadav1*, Suresh Kumar Yadav2 and Geeta Parihar3

1
Department of Microbiology, JLN Medical College, Ajmer (Rajasthan), India
2
Department of Pediatrics, JLN Medical College, Ajmer (Rajasthan), India

*Corresponding author

ABSTRACT

Typhoid fever is a major public health problem associated with significant

morbidity and mortality in many countries. There is a need for a quick and reliable
diagnostic test for typhoid fever as an alternative to the Widal test. This study was
Keywords aimed to evaluate typhidot vis--vis blood culture and Widal test in children.
Patients aged 6 months to 12 years, having fever of more than four days duration
Typhidot test, with clinical suspicion of typhoid fever were enrolled. Patients in whom other
Typhoid fever, diagnosis was made served as control. The tests under scrutiny were validated
Widal test against blood culture and then all the three tests were evaluated among patients
who presented in the first week of illness. Of 100 children with suspected typhoid
fever, the disease was confirmed bacteriologically in 20, whereas 50 patients were
considered to have typhoid fever on clinical grounds. An alternative diagnosis was
made in 30 cases. The typhidot test was found to be superior to the Widal test in its
diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. Typhidot is a practical alternative to widal
test for the diagnosis of typhoid fever.

Introduction

Typhoid fever, caused by Salmonella Isolation of Salmonella from blood, urine or

enterica serotype Typhi, is a major cause of
morbidity and mortality worldwide, causing
an estimated 16.6 million new infections and
1 600,000 deaths each year.
It is endemic in the Indian subcontinent
including Bangladesh, South-east and Far-
east Asia, Africa and South Central
America. The annual incidence of typhoid
fever has been reported as more than 13
million cases in Asia (Ivanoff et al., 1994).
stool is the most reliable means of
confirming an infection. Blood culture is
regarded as the gold standard for diagnosis
and carry 70 75% diagnostic yield in the
first week of illness (Krishna et al., 2011).
However, this requires laboratory equipment
and technical training that are beyond the
means of most primary health care facilities
in the developing world (Olsen et al., 2004).
In addition, easy availability and widespread
use of antibiotics in the community makes it

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 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2015) 4(5): 34-38
frequently difficult to isolate the organism
from blood culture and alternate methods
such as bone marrow cultures may be
required, which is invasive and difficult to
carry out (Begum et al., 2009).
Thus one has to rely on serological
diagnosis, which is the mainstay of
diagnosis of typhoid fever in most
laboratories in developing world.
Unfortunately, neither the Widal test which
remains in widespread use in the developing
world, nor any of the serodiagnostic tests
that have since been developed, has proven
sufficiently sensitive, specific and practical
to be of value in areas where this disease is
endemic (Olsen et al., 2004).
Widal test has been used in the diagnosis of
typhoid illness for long time in this country
but it remains a serological test with a
moderate sensitivity and specificity.
Therefore, a fast, reliable, and easy to
perform serodiagnostic test with a higher
sensitivity and specificity than Widal test is
required for rapid diagnosis and
management of typhoid cases, thereby
enabling clinicians to initiate an early
therapy, reducing morbidity and its
complications.
Typhidot is a rapid serological test for the
diagnosis of typhoid fever. However, its
usefulness in terms of Specificity and
sensitivity as compared to Widal test has not
been studied much.
This study was undertaken to systematically
evaluate the utility of typhidot in diagnosis
of typhoid fever in terms of sensitivity and
specificity.
Material and Methods
This study was conducted in Jawahar Lal
Nehru Medical College and Hospital,
35
Ajmer. It was a hospital based prospective
study, which included 100 clinically
suspected enteric fever cases. All children
between 6 months and 12 years of age with
fever of more than four days having a
clinical suspicion of typhoid fever were
enrolled and admitted to the hospital. The
criteria for clinical suspicion were those
already used by previous workers (Bhutta et
al., 1994; Bhutta et al., 1999; Ferdin, 1999).
Detailed clinical evaluation was done and
findings were recorded on a standardized
format. Complete blood count, smear for
malarial parasite, urine and stool routine
microscopy and urine culture were also done
in all cases.
Five ml of blood was inoculated into blood
culture media (BHI broth) and incubated at
37 C. Subcultures were done on every
alternate day till the 7th day. The growth of
Salmonella was identified as per standard
protocol and confirmed by agglutination
with Salmonella polyvalent O , O 9 and
H:'d' antisera (Koneman, 1997). The Widal
test was performed by slide agglutination
method and it was considered positive when
a titre of equal to or more than 1:160 was
observed (Old, 1996).
Typhidot test is a dot ELISA kit that detects
IgM and IgG antibodies against the outer
membrane protein (OMP) of the Salmonella
typhi. The typhidot test becomes positive
within 2 3 days of infection and separately
identifies IgM and IgG antibodies. The test
is based on the presence of specific IgM and
IgG antibodies to a specific 50KD OMP
antigen, which is impregnated on
nitrocellulose strips. The reaction tray was
divided into 2 columns marked as G and M.
250 l of sample diluent was dispensed in
each well and 2.5 l of test /control was
added and then incubated for 20 minutes.
The strips were washed with washing buffer
thrice, 250 l of anti human IgG and IgM
 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2015) 4(5): 34-38
was dispensed then in each well and
incubated for another 15 minutes. These
were washed again, dispensed with 250 l
of colour development solution, and
incubated for another 15 minutes and results
were then interpreted. A positive IgM was
interpreted clinically as acute typhoidal
illness, while IgM and IgG positive were
taken as acute typhoidal illness in middle
stage of infection and IgG positive was
interpreted as chronic carrier or previous
infection or reinfection.
Results of blood culture, widal and typhidot
test were compared in all patients for their
sensitivity and specificity.
Results and Discussion
A total of 100 cases were enrolled in this
study with suspected typhoid fever. The
diagnosis was confirmed in 20(20/100) by
isolation of salmonella typhi on blood
culture. In 30 cases, alternative diagnosis
was made and these cases constituted
negative controls, consisted of 12 cases with
malaria, 8 cases with viral respiratory
infections, 4 with pneumonia, 4 with urinary
tract infections and 2 with meningitis.
Table.1 compares the sensitivity, specificity,
positive and negative predictive values for
the Widal, Typhidot, and blood culture for
this cohort. When only blood culture proven
cases (n=20) were analyzed, Typhidot was
significant superior to the widal in terms of
diagnostic predictive values (Table. 2).
Typhoid fever is a systemic illness with a
significant morbidity and mortality in
developing countries (Sherwal et al., 2004).
Emergence of multidrug resistant strains of
Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi has only
added to the burden of the disease. Any
delay in diagnosis of appropriate therapy
only increases the risk of outcome (Begum
et al., 2009).
36
Blood culture has remained the gold
standard for diagnosis of typhoid fever. In
our study culture positivity among clinically
suspected typhoid cases was 28.5 %. Culture
positivity in other studies have quoted
sensitivity ranging from 8.9 43%
(Narayanappa et al., 2009; Akoh, 1991;
Jesudason and Sivakumar, 2006; Saha et al.,
2003). The relative low rate of isolation
from blood culture had been attributed to
delay in diagnosis, widespread and irrational
use of antibiotics and low volume of blood
obtained for cultures among children. This
value is too low to satisfy the criterion of a
diagnostic test, irrespective of the reasons
for its low yield. Nonetheless, blood culture
is the foolproof method for the diagnosis of
typhoid fever and hence a substitute has to
be validated against it. Furthermore, the
feasibility of a test has to be taken into
account.
Widal test has been used for over a century
in developing countries but its diagnostic
utility has been limited due to low
sensitivity, specificity and positive
predictive value (Sherwal et al., 2004).
Decreased sensitivity is due to the long
latent period after which the test may
become positive. Decreased specificity is
due to prior infection, vaccination with TAB
vaccine, cross reaction with other gram
negative infections. In the present study,
Widal test was positive in 68% (48/70) of
the patients. Widal test was positive in 9 of
the 20 blood culture positive patients and 4
of blood culture negative patients. Thus the
test had sensitivity of 45% and specificity of
86%. The finding of the present study
indicates a low specificity for Widal test.
Similar results have been reported in other
studies from endemic areas, where there
may be high levels of specific and cross
reacting antibodies (Sherwal et al., 2004;
Narayanappa et al., 2009; Khoharo, 2011).
Ideally a fourfold rise in antibody titre in a
 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2015) 4(5): 34-38

paired serum is more diagnostic. Though
higher sensitivity and specificity for Widal
has been reported, its use in endemic areas
should not be encouraged.
Typhidot test is based on detection of
antibodies which appear in detectable titers
as early as the second day of illness. It
showed sensitivity of 90% and specificity of
100% in blood culture proved cases. The test
had sensitivity of 85% and specificity of
100% in the typhoid fever cases.

Table.1 Diagnostic parameters of various tests for the entire cohort of clinically suspected
typhoid fever cases (n = 70)

Diagnostic Sensitivity % Specificity % PPV % NPV %

Tests
Blood Culture 28.5 100 100 37
Widal 68 86 94 57
Typhidot 85 100 100 75
# Positive blood culture in cases = 20, positive blood culture in controls = 0
* Positive Widal in cases = 48, positive Widal in controls = 4
** Positive typhidot in cases = 60, positive typhidot in controls = 0

Table.2 Diagnostic parameters of various tests among blood culture positive cases (n = 20)

Diagnostic tests Sensitivity % Specificity % PPV % NPV %

Widal test 45 86 69 70
Typhidot test 90 100 100 93
* Positive Widal (cases = 9, controls = 4)
** Positive typhidot (cases = 18, controls = 0)

We do not believe that our data support the
use of either the Widal or Typhidot test as a
substitute for cultures in typhoid fever. It
must be emphasized that although cultures
are associated with a lag period of at least 48
hr for preliminary confirmation of infection,
with the recent emergence of drug resistance
among S. typhi, they remain an essential
investigation.
In many circumstances, especially among
partially treated cases presenting to health
facilities, combining cultures with a rapid
serologic test may reduce the diagnostic
difficulty in typhoid fever. So combining the
blood cultures with a Typhidot will
significantly improve the diagnostic yield of
these investigations among children who
have previously received antibiotics.
The Typhidot offers an additional advantage
among serologic diagnostic tests for typhoid
fever in that the test strips do not require an
ELISA reader for evaluation. Also, only
minimal operator training is required.
Nevertheless, the higher cost of the test in
comparison with the Widal test, as well as
cold-storage requirements for test reagents,
are additional impediments in using this test
in developing country.
In the present study we conclude that
Typhidot is a practical alternative to Widal
test in the diagnosis of Typhoid fever on
account of its increased sensitivity, early
detection of cases, and ease of procedure
with minimal infrastructure and availability
of results on the same day. However, a
larger prospective study would be required

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 Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2015) 4(5): 34-38
to fully evaluate the usefulness of this test in
countries endemic to typhoid fever.
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